How I go to yard sales to find my treasrues.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share my routine when it comes to prepping for the big weekend garage sale hunts.

Unfortunately for me right now, I work on Fridays so I don't get to hit the garage sales on the first day they are open.  That will change once I get out of the military and when it does, hopefully my finds will increase.

Everyone has their own way of going to garage sales, and there really isn't a right or wrong way, but for me, it's all about time management.

Now, around here the garage sales don't usually start until 9 am....  Yeah that's right, I said 9!  I am from the Midwest where the garage sales start EARLY!  Anyways, I start out the night before, planning my route with google maps.

I go to Craigslist and look up keyword specific items that may be listed in the garage sale ads to see if anything comes up.  If I find a sale that has something I want or might want but the ad is very vague, I will contact owners directly so I can find out exactly what they have.

After that, I begin my address gathering by copying the addresses of Craigslist and into google maps with my house as A. and then go on down the line in no particular order.  I start out with the immediate area around me.  After I run out of sales in my immediate area, I move on to the next area and do the same thing over again until I have all the garage sales that I want.

I then hit directions and it gives me a large jumble of garage sale points in no particular order.

I fix this by moving the sales into alphabetical order according to the path that I am going to be traveling away from my house.    If you have a sale that is directly next to your house and it is listed as Z, you can move the Z from the bottom of the directions area and drop it right below A, and your Z will turn into a B.  I line up all my sales just like that so I have a somewhat linear path for my garage sales.

One word of warning though, You need to make sure that you pay attention to what time the sales are open and place them in order that way also.

I also give estate sales and other sales of interest priority, and if they are the furthest away, I will usually go to them first and work my way backwards.

I try to stick to the path as much as possible, I don't know how many times I have come across garage sale signs that were old and ended up wasting time trying to find a sale that didn't exist so I just stick with my plan and it works out well for me.

So that is how I do my garage sale hunting,  I would love to hear how everyone else does it!  Please comment!

FT OUT!

If you are not on my blog, come see my other posts at http://famousturtletreasures.blogspot.com